"Yes, Western education is forbidden," said the shirtless man with the bandaged arm. "Any type of knowledge that contradicts Islam, Allah does not allow you to acquire it." It was July 2009, and the speaker was Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of a group of then little-known jihadists. The setting was a hasty interrogation that followed Yusuf's capture after a brief uprising in north-eastern Nigeria sparked by a clash with policemen. A few hours later he was executed by security forces. Rather than focusing on the usual subjects of such conversations-locations of weapons and quantities of soldiers, say-the interrogation took the form of a theological debate between two Muslims. Details of the encounter, which was recorded on video, shed much light on the contradictory and messianic world view of Yusuf, the founder of a group that has since become familiar to the wider world as Boko Haram, a name that loosely translates as "Western education is forbidden". That the group takes exception to such teaching is all too plain. Last year it kidnapped more than 200 girls from a school in Chibok in north-eastern Nigeria that used Western teaching principles.
展开▼
